The DC Society
by kadeice.williams.3
Summary: it's not really a back to the future story they said I had to choose a category and technically my story didn't belong in a category so. yeah. three girls all from different eras meet to save the US president. will Mae, Nancie and Audery save the day and keep the seams of time intact? rubbish but I have writers block so don't burn me please! by the way this is my first. only good R


Mae

July 28th 1914

Sometimes I wish I was a boy. Helen says I shouldn't think such thoughts. But I don't see why it's so bad. I want to run around being messy and not having to darn and learn to iron and starch shirts, I myself am a proud suffragette, I had my room painted white, green and purple specially for the cause and only buy Purple, green and white from Candy Hill. It's terrible the way men treat women, like they have no place in the ''big bad world''.

Father says it's not a woman's plays to be mucky or run around like boys, he says they should be dainty and gentle and quiet and ''let men do the talking''.

There are rumours of a war going around and

Nancie

Friday 25th August 1962

Mr Jones is obviously one of those racist communists!

Can you believe it? The comeback of the sherbet creams started today and I was up early. Put on my best dress and shoes, hair real nice and six months worth of pocket money in my purse. I went to Candy Hill down the street. The queue wasn't long and there were big jars full of the stuff behind Mr Jones.

I waited for five minutes or so before I had reached the counter meanwhile a queue had extended to the end of the road.

A mother and a little girl were standing behind me about a meter away, the mother was holding onto her daughter protectively as if I'm going to mug them or something but I was used to it, I'm always used to it. People react that way all the time when they're around black people.

Black people like me.

So anyway I had reached the counter and opened my mouth to ask for some sherbet creams just as Mr Jones gave me that look like I was a slug or something

Then asked what the mother and daughter would like. He carried on like this till the end of the line then finally asked what I wanted. But what could I want now? All the sherbet creams were gone. So in the end I got a handful of bubble gummies the left all sulky while Mr Jones smirked. I couldn't see his face but I knew he was.

Audrey

Sunday 25th August 2013

What was she thinking! If he thought I was going to let her treat me like that she has another thing coming.

That great loaf of a governess took my credit card for ''going over the limit'' and driving him to his limit. To be honest I don't see what she has to fuss about. I mean it was only a few hundred and with the help of my pocket money I could have paid it of easily.

So anyways she went down the stairs muttering and cursing under her breath leaving me just standing there. I felt a little worried, I got an earful from daddy with the ''money doesn't grow on trees'' speech. I can remember his words exactly:

'…Young lady you very well know that this is your last chance to redeem yourself before I have no choice but to send you to Worthington academy. Don't you remember seeing the website? Don't you remember the cold brick buildings and the dark motionless windows? (He's a writer - totes embarrassing) You'll be seeing a lot more of that if you carry on with this don't care attitude.' I knew very well that if she told my parents will send me to that prison where they wear horrible uniforms and work – hard. Imagine no more Candy Hill, no more privacy and no more shopping.

Really, what has the world come to?

Mae

February 4th 1918

The most amazing thing happened today! I was called up by the mistress so she may check my work, she opened her drawer and there I saw a sash of red green and purple. She caught me staring but she didn't scold me for prying but gave me a sly wink. It was like was like we were communicating with our minds. We both wanted what was right.

And to make it better she asked to talk to me at the end of the day where she told me that her father had disowned her for marching with the other women in a parade and also of when she watched Emily Davidson crushed by the king's horse at the Epsom derby. This was all very interesting thought it made me think, what people would think of me if they knew what I supported? Would they accept it or shut me out like miss Ruben's father did.

Feb 4th 1918

How could he be so unfair! I don't wish to leave. Father lost his job at the mill and came home slouched and upset. He says without his job there is no way he will be able to pay for all three of us to go to school and instead we will go into town and help lassie manage her shop. Now Maggie and I will just stay at from school all day and calculate prices. No vote, no Candy Hill and no school.

How could _life_ be so unfair?

Nancie

Life is Horrible, I'm writing here in the hospital 'cause ma was beaten up by white folks not getting out of their way. They beat her up with bats and no-one did anything about it. She's lyin' there all bruised and battered and they say she won't be out of bed for a couple of months. What can I do now? If ma can't get back to work she won't be paid and if she can't get back to work she won't get paid and if she don't get paid... imagine no food, no candy hill and no flat.

Audrey

What's the point in hoping? I'm going to Worthington academy. Like the sneak she is she told my parents. It wasn't like there was anything to be said. Daddy made this tut, tut, tut sound and stalked up the stairs. After whispering with Governess Ida (weird right?) mum went up too. Really there was nothing to say, it was pretty clear I'm going.

I always knew that I could be a _little_ bit annoying but it was totally unreasonable to kick me out! Though what's the point? Mum's as stubborn as a mule and begging dad to let me stay is out of the question.

I've got seven days to change their minds.

That shouldn't be too hard right?

Mae

It seems there has been a revelation. Mother's rich sister Gloria is the headmistress of a boarding school called Worthington academy. Father sent a letter asking her to take Margaret and me in as boarding students. I'd love to go to school again as I haven't been in a week it seems so lonely at the shop selling groceries and calculating prices. Though I guess it is a kind of maths. I felt a rather strong pang of jealousy when four boys came in with their tied up book slung over their shoulders.

Coming back to the point, we are due to leave tomorrow. Our things are packed into four trunks and I am going to tuck this diary in a little pocket I had sewn under my petticoat. (Sometimes learning to sew does come to use at one time or another.)

Nancie

I've just found out that ma will not be coming out of hospital any time soon. The nurse says that it will probably be a few months before she gets out. During this time I am to go to a newly integrated school called Worthington academy. Then during the war it was reopened by a committee of parents and some people in general against segregation.

The school is one of the only ones in the area where coloured and white people go to school together. I'm not sure what to make of it. Was there such a place where children were not accompanied through the school halls by soldiers? It doesn't say so but how will I cope?

So back to the point, I am to leave tomorrow and travel by bus to Worthington.

Imagine no comfy warm bed, no candy hill and no Ma.

Audrey.

Well here I am. I guess they were serious. I'm at Worthington academy, and it looks even worse than the website.

The beefy lady with the fat fingers – who looked a little bit like a nineteenth century nurse – led me to the dormitory. The halls were big wide and there were several large doors. We went through a pair of double doors which held the sign: Mae Jae dormitory.

'Rather and unusual name for a dormitory isn't it?' I asked

'It was named after a girl called Mae jones or Mae Jae as her friends called her.' And we carried on walking.

'Why was she so famous?' I asked.

'Saved the school she did. Don't know what exactly, it was all written down in documents by the headmistress and founder Miss Worthington but it was stolen and hidden in the depths of the school. Well that's what I heard anyway. Every year we go on a special hunt to find the documents but we've never come close.'

At least something was picking up.

I've always loved mysteries. I love the excitement, the surprise and the satisfaction of solving it. It's the one thing people don't now about me.

'What day is the hunt?' I asked

'You've come at the right time, for its only three days' time.' She said in a strong British accent. This would be great because I guess it's the only thing that they ever do around here.

Entering the room there were twelve beds, each with the same duvet and pillow surrounded by a lovely shade of turquoise.

Good feature number two.

I could tell by the way the gleaming white and ironed sheets of the corner bed were mine. Distracted, I jumped when the nurse's gruff voice spoke.

'You will call me Miss Barron. Leave your bags here and come with me.' Doing as I was told, I followed her down the wide corridors and eventually began to notice how grand the school was. The windows were huge and outside I could see the fine architecture of one of the buildings. The large arches and grand doors made it clear that this school had been up a long time.

We abruptly paused at a small door unlike the others was plain and uninteresting. Miss Barron handed me a plastic Sainsbury bag.

'Your uniform is in here. Change quickly and hurry.' (Geez, laugh much?)

Anyway I went through the door to see it was just and ordinary changing room. It was small and poorly lighted but I got changed quickly assuming that Miss Barron did not like time wasters.

How do people cope here? The uniform is horrible! Kilts, ties and dull ballet pumps. Once dressed I came out to see Miss Barron talking to another girl who had strawberry blonde hair and seemed practically identical to the other girls filing out one by one through a set of doors larger than the others I've seen.

Miss Barron spotted my standing by the door and looked at me rather rudely from the top of my head to my toes. It wasn't hard to see by her face that she had made of long list of errors. She presented a schoolbag with the logo imprinted on it and brought out a booklet called: Rules and Regulations of Worthington Academy.

'This is Dollie; she will be showing you around and escorting you to classes till you settle down.' The dark haired girl beamed. I guess she really did look like a doll with the big blue eyes and glossy blonde ringlets.

'Dollie take Audrey to the breakfast hall please.'

'Yes Miss Barron.' She replied.

Matron turned around sharply and marched off down the hall while Dollie led me through the double doors. This took me by surprise.

'Follow me.' I followed her snapping out of a trance.

After climbing up a grand flight of stairs we went across a hallway to a door which said: Lower School Breakfast Hall. The breakfast hall was huge and it seemed like a brand new revelation of technology. Instead of an ordinary canteen there was a wide rotating cylinder with different foods on it. At any time I my mouth would have watered but for some reason I wasn't quite hungry. As if she had read my mind Dollie spoke.

'Are you hungry?' She asked.

'Not really.'

'Good. We have something to show you. Follow me.' We went around the machine and walked down a narrow hallway.

'These are the storage units. It's where all the spare things are and this is also where Miss Barron's office is so whenever we have meetings here it's after dark.'

'Meetings for what?'

'Meetings for the DC Society. DC as in Drastic Change, we'll tell you about it when we get there.'

As the journey got longer, the halls got smaller until we reached a long mirror with a small symbol on carved into the centre of the frame,(it looked vaguely like a ying and yang symbol but with entwined letters DC). Dollie took off a similar black and white necklace and place it in the gap. The gap swallowed the necklace then it automatically opened to a grand hall with a round table with a gap in the middle. It looked a bit like a donut. Around thirty girls sat around the table and they looked familiar

_**Chapter 2**_

Mae

It's been a long ride from London and Maggie and I are weary and rather hungry. There was a heavily built lady who opened the door and asked us to call her Ms Barron. She led us to our rooms which were separated according to age. Maggie's room had whitewashed walls and six beds on either side of the room. It also had a long table with several bowls of water and a small bar of soap beside them.

It was long into the night and there was a rising and falling bump in each bed. Maggie was sent to sleep after giving me a brief hug and assuring me that she will see me in the morning. After, Miss Barron took me to my room which was identical to Maggie's, with the same rising and falling bumps and long table with bowls of water.

I didn't bring much with me apart from my beloved diary which I planned to smuggle under my mattress, a few ribbons, my cloak and my two best bonnets. We were told that all my clothes were to be provided at the school. I slipped my small bag under my bed and climbed into it. Miss Barron closed the door gently, which truthfully I did not think was possible with her heavy build.

After her footsteps faded away there was a ruffle of sheets and a few seconds later a candle was lit. And in unison a cluster of girls formed a semi-circle around my bed.

'Who are you?' The girl holding the candle asked.

'Mae Jones'

'So, you're new here.' Said another.

'Yes I am, our aunt sent for me and my sister to come stay here.' I answered. It had been a long ride and I was desperate to get to sleep.'

'You're Aunt?'

'Yes, Miss Worthington.' A gasp seemed to run around the semi circle.

'Well seeing your Miss Worthington's niece I suspect that she'll want us to help you find your way around the school.' The girl holding the candle put it down and lit another which illuminated the room, allowing me to see their faces. The girl who which I found had red ringlets and glowing green eyes. She held out her hand.

'I'm Gladys.' I shook it, the other girls how were crowded around the bed followed each holding out their hand and introducing their names.

Ethel, Anna, Mabel, and Viola – I'll never learn all these names. These girl whose name was Pearl, spoke up.

'Just stay with us and we will show you how it works around here. Though I think the first thing you should know is stay clear of matron if you can, rumour says she's a witch.'

'A witch?'

'Yes she disappears at midnight to cast spells and boil children.' Gladys spoke up rather noisily.

'Rubbish. Witches don't exist. And even if they did Miss Baron would be too lazy to disappear anywhere. All she does is laze around and nick muffins from the pantry, I saw her once!'

'Oh please if you're so smart, why don't you just-'Pearl was cut off by footsteps.

'Quick!' Gladys hissed. 'Matron's coming!' all the girls scattered and dived into their beds. Miss Barron opened the door and stood silently. Then shut the door with a soft click.

_**Chapter 3**_

Nancie

I'm here, I'm finally here. I feel like a wretch for leaving ma like that. I had to trek from the bus stop and then waited for ages for someone to open the doors of the academy. Way very meaty woman answered and told me to call her Miss Barron or matron. Then she took me to a room called Mae-Jae Dormitory, where a room with twelve identical beds lay. It seemed very busy. Girls were bustling around making beds and putting on uniforms.

'You'll find all you need on your bed. The girls will help you.' With that she left the room while I stood there not really sure what to do. They were all girls my age but what surprised me was that they were all different colours. Caucasian, Asian, African, south American – it wasn't a thing I saw every day. I grew up my whole life being separated, in the city it was unheard of for people of different races to even _sit_ together. In the chaos I noticed a particular girl with bronze like skin I suspected she was from India. Anyway she sat on her bed reading unlike all the other girls who were rushing around. Plucking up all my courage I went over dodging flying pillows as stood beside the bed.

'Hi.' I said. The girl looked up and closed her book carefully marking the page.

'Hey, your that new girl right? We've been waiting for you.

'You have?' I was puzzled how did they even know I was coming?

'You see we have a thing called the DC Society.'

'What's the DC Society? Is that like a club?'

'Yes, and we want you to join. Right now we've got a few of the other dormitories on our side and a few of the Mae-Jaes on our side.' I was fairly confused seeing that I had only been in this room for no more than three minutes.

'We'll tell you the details later at the meeting, but for now –'she paused, 'Do you accept?

The dorm had gone quiet and all the girls had formed a ring around the bed. It seemed as if the room was holding its breath.

'Yes, yes I accept.'

'Good, now at least we know that you're on our side. Well you'd better get changed breakfast starts in five minutes. Your uniform school bag are on your bed, just put your case under the bed.

'I think you're going to like it here and oh, one more thing.' She paused, 'This society is a secret. You tell no-one or you're out.'

_**AUDREY**_

The breakfast hall was huge and it seemed like a brand new revelation of technology. Instead of an ordinary canteen there was a wide rotating cylinder with different foods on it. At any time I my mouth would have watered but for some reason I wasn't quite hungry. As if she had read my mind Dollie spoke.

'Are you hungry?' She asked.

'Not really.'

'Good. We have something to show you. Follow me.' We went around the machine and walked down a narrow hallway.

'These are the storage units. It's where all the spare things are and this is also where Miss Barron's office is so whenever we have meetings here it's after dark.'

'Meetings for what?'

'Meetings for the DC Society. DC as in Drastic Change, we'll tell you about it when we get there.'

As the journey got longer, the halls got smaller until we reached a long mirror with a small symbol on carved into the centre of the frame,(it looked vaguely like a ying and yang symbol but with entwined letters DC). Dollie took off a similar black and white necklace and place it in the gap. The gap swallowed the necklace then it automatically opened to a grand hall with a round table with a gap in the middle. A bit like a donut. Around thirty girls sat around the table each wearing a necklace the same as Dollies'.

'This might come as a shock to you but we need to be quick with briefing you.' Said a girl who looked around sixteen. 'The DC Society is very important to our school and very important to hundreds around the world. We try to tone down discrimination of all kinds at the major points in time and to do this we need a way to get there and we get there – through this.' She pointed to the hole in the middle of the table which was now a soft blue.

'This is a time portal, a time portal to nineteen eighteen to be exact. That year was when women got the vote. It was a crucial time to change the governments mind about giving women the vote and with our help we try to improve the situation which was then- sexism.

'I see.'

'We tend to go through the portals every now and then but it has gotten quite dangerous due to interference from inside forces.'

'What inside forces?' I asked.

'By inside forces I mean the board of governors who want to knock down this building and dig for ''treasure''. If we loose this building we lose this hall, hundreds of time portals and our archives where important documents lay and what the governors think is treasure.' She took in a sharp intake of breath. 'The matron, Miss Barron is a very good friend of the headmistress and we fear that she may manipulate her decision about tearing down the hall. So we must get as many of the dormitories on our side and relocate the archives, but the problem is we must actually _find_ the archives.' She looked at me.

'Uh…' It was so much to take in. time portals? Nineteen eighteen? The DC Society?

'Ok so there's a time portal to do what exactly?' the girl sighed.

'To help influence the minds of the government, we use our school resources to make sashes and banners and pamphlets. But we also go there every once in a while to enjoy things that are unlikely to happen now. In a few days time during Mae-Jae day, we are going to scout for the archives, then if we find them we will manoeuvre them to the old bank in the year 1751 it will be dangerous and we'll need all the help we can get.'

'Wow. This is a lot to take in, it just seems so surreal and fantasised.'

'I can assure you that this is no fantasy. We try as hard as we can to shape the minds of the government to get rid of the things that make the world not seem such a nice place. In nineteen fourteen the parliament considered giving women he vote but no until they prove themselves ''worthy.'' The girl stepped around the table and stopped in front of me she was wearing the same chain Dollie wore.

'I thought you only had meetings at midnight so as not to get caught.'

'We do. But we always do this when we bring in new members. Like a kind of orientation. We also need to do this to give your official key to the DC Society.' The girl presented a small box and opened it with a flourish. An identical chain with a similar peace symbol with the letters DC engraved on it. Taking it out of its case I marvelled at the fine work and asked: 'How do you make these?' the girl shrugged with a cheeky grin.

'We have our sources.'

'Well…thank you. It just seems so much to take in it would be great to join a secret society.'

'You have to remember that this isn't just fun and games with secret meetings and gossiping and giggling. This is real hard work making sure that the course of time stays on track.'

'Well. You'd better get to breakfast you'll be hungry if you miss it.'

Mae

This is it. There's going to be a war. The gave a whole talk on it in assembly. The huge hall which acted like a train station


End file.
